


forgive me, my love, for I have sinned

by allmadeofstardust



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Grand Relics, Inspired By Tumblr, character introspection, lup pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22917562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allmadeofstardust/pseuds/allmadeofstardust
Summary: She should have listened. She should have trusted him, her lover. Instead, she sent the gauntlet out into the world.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	forgive me, my love, for I have sinned

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a Tumblr post that said "Casual reminder that Lup saw Barry die to her relic while she was in the Umbrastaff". So why not write some angst!

Barry was the first one to express concern about the relics.

And it started with Lup's.

He was never the biggest voice in the group. Introverted to his core, he only ever spoke up when he absolutely knew what he was talking about. He trusted the group's decisions, Davenport's leadership. They were his family. He loved them, and knew they had everyone's best interests at heart.

Lup knew this. Which is why, when he spoke up, she knew something was  _ very wrong _ .

“Lup?”

It was just the two of them, sitting alone in Barry’s lab space. Barry had been tinkering with the Animus Bell, making final adjustments.

“Lup, you with me?”

Lup, who had been absentmindedly running her fingers along the edges of the gauntlet in her hands, snapped out of her reverie.

“Huh?”

Barry offered her a small smile.

“Sorry. It’s just…”

His fingers closed on the handle of the bell.

“Do you ever get the feeling we’re doing something...wrong?”

Lup let out a nervous laugh.

“Well yeah, babe, I mean...didn’t we already decide that these things are gonna be a risk?”

Barry shook his head.

“I don’t mean that. These things are gonna raise hell no matter what, it’s why we’re  _ making _ them. But Lup - ”

He turned away from the desk, letting the bell rest untouched on its side. From here, it looked like an innocent child’s toy.

“ - Lup, I’m so scared of what it’s going to do to us. To  _ you. _ ”

Lup almost felt the metal of the gauntlet underneath her fingertips grow hot, like it was burning. It didn’t phase her - far from her to be afraid of a little fire - but she felt it all the same. She gazed down at it before setting it down next to her. She slipped off her seat and knelt in front of Barry, taking his hand.

“Babe, we  _ owe _ it to this world to keep it safe. To keep the Hunger away. Whatever happens with these relics, it’s not going to be as horrible as that. A sheer mass of void, swallowing up everything anyone holds dear. We can’t - ”

She paused, trying to hold back tears. Her voice wavered.

“We’ve been fighting this for so long, Barry. We can’t let it happen again. Not ever.”

She sucked in a gasp of air.

“ _ I won’t let it _ . Okay Barry? Not again.”

She should have listened. She should have trusted him, her lover. Instead, she sent the gauntlet out into the world.

She left. Out of guilt, shame, spite, who knew. But she hadn't heeded his warnings, and now innocent people were paying the price, and it  _ was _ happening again. She was letting it happen.

She couldn't stand to be around her family when she knew what she had become. Wouldn't let them see her break. She'd fight it, like she always did.

So when Lup felt the dagger enter her back, felt the poison creep through her veins, she panicked, and sealed away the gauntlet forever. She died, knowing it was safe.

She fell into the prison of the umbrella, thinking her relic was safe.

*****

Time was a strange concept there. Half of it she didn't even know if she was  _ real _ , her essence was so ethereal, so removed from reality. But she worked, tirelessly, to claw her way towards consciousness. Because that's all she had, now. A small sliver of hope that she would make it. That she would live through this.

The only way she knew that twelve years had passed was when she saw Taako.

Elves aged so slowly, but she could see it on his face. Laugh lines that weren't there before. Small freckles. He hid it all beneath a glamour, but she was smarter than that.

She tried  _ so badly _ to touch him, to hold him. If he was there, with Magnus and Merle, then the others would be right behind, wouldn't they? Taako would save her, she'd see Barry again, they could finally save this world.

But Taako didn't remember her. And Barry wasn't here.

The heartache was fierce and consuming, and it was almost all encompassing enough that she forgot about the gauntlet.

Almost.

Not five minutes after Taako touched her (she could count time, now, she wasn't lost), Gundren had opened the vault. And she saw it. Twelve years had done nothing to dim its shine, the metal gleaming in non-existent sunlight.

She didn't even have time to scream before it was gone, and they were running, and she was begging Taako to  _ hurry, please, hurry, I can't watch this again, I thought it was safe, I died thinking it was  _ _ safe _ .

They found themselves in Phandalin. And that's when she saw Barry.

He was on fire, and she would have laughed at his frantic lovable face if not for the circumstances. And then she realized two things quite quickly.

He didn't remember Taako.

And he didn't remember  _ her _ .

Surely he would feel her, calling out. Taako was never a lich, maybe he didn't know the fine tuned nature of it all, but  _ Barry _ would. Barry would save her. Barry would save them all.

Instead, he was scared.

He had always been scared of the relics. She should have fucking  _ listened _ . And now here he was, staring at the flames that  _ her _ gauntlet had created, with terror in his eyes.

She watched as Merle (always the peacemaker, he was, always,  _ always _ ) tried to talk Gundren down.

She watched as an arrow ruined it all.

She watched Barry,  _ her _ Barry. The lover, so vulnerable without his family, without  _ her _ . She watched him try to appease Gundren (or what was left of him). Tried one last push to try and calm him down. To put a stop to it all, because it's what Lup would have done.

The Phoenix Fire Gauntlet swelled with energy. She felt it pulse, like a heartbeat, pounding in her ears. The heat blossomed, the force rose. And a single flaming hand fell, with no mercy, down onto Barry's form.

She  _ screamed _ .

No one heard her.

They were moving again, faster and more desperate, and she looked up, praying, because maybe he would come back, he was still a lich, he couldn't be killed, that's why they did it, so that they could be together always, fighting, side by side.

She felt herself falling.

Heard silence.

Saw nothing but dark.

She clung to the last source of stimuli she could find, and it was Taako's heartbeat.

When they emerged, she ignored their confusion, their trepidation, in favor of looking around, searching. It was nothing but black glass, nothing but cold empty space, and the gauntlet,  _ her _ gauntlet, was right in the middle of it.

It had happened again.

And Barry wasn't here.

The flame wasn't just your everyday Fireball. It was magic, deep, Light of Creation-infused magic. Nothing could survive it. Nothing  _ did _ survive it.

Not even Barry.

It was her fault, it was all  _ her _ . Nothing mattered except that fact, ringing dull and hollow in her mind.

She stayed awake long enough to make sure that Taako didn't suffer the same fate. And of course he didn't. They had made sure they would resist the relics' thrall.

Lup hadn't even thought about making them resistant to their effects.

Spell shaping was her deal. She should have stopped it. Could have stopped it.

She curled into herself, wanting to cry, but she found she couldn’t in her current form.

****

“Barry?”

He barely looked up from his lab bench. “Yeah, Lup?”

She lingered nearby, drifting her hand over the back of his chair.

“Did it hurt? When you died to my -” Her voice caught in her throat. “In Phandalin.”

Barry put his tools down and looked up at her. He was wearing a different set of glasses - some with weird attachments that he claimed help him see the layers of magic he worked with better. Lup thought they made him look like a nerd. Well, more than he usually did.

“Gods, Lup, where did this come from?”

“Just answer the question.” She bit her lower lip. “Please.”

He shook his head slowly.

“I didn’t...I mean, Lup, you  _ know _ what dying feels like, we’ve only done it a dozen times!”

“Not like that. Not to a relic.”

She stared hard at the ground.

“Not to  _ my _ relic.”

Bary’s face softened.

“Oh.”

He took Lup’s hands in his and squeezed.

“You want my honest answer?”

Lup nodded. She couldn’t quite look him in the eye.

“It was hot. All encompassing heat, but just for a second. And there was this massive pulse of energy. I’d only ever felt that way whenever I was studying near the  _ Starblaster’s _ engines.”

“Yeah, but did it  _ hurt _ ?” Lup insisted, stamping her foot. She was trying to blink back tears.

Barry tucked a finger under her chin and raised her face to meet his.

“A pinch. Like a bee sting, but with fire.”

Lup laughed despite the circumstances.

“But by the time I even realized what had happened, I was already dead.”

Lup winced at the word  _ dead _ , and Barry noticed.

“Hey. I tried to find you. The first thing I wanted was to make sure you were okay.”

“Barry, you were  _ killed _ by  _ my _ weapon!” she whimpered.

“And all that mattered was that it was safe. Taako made it safe. Lucretia made it safe. It’s  _ gone _ , Lup. And we’re still standing.”

Lup fell forward and embraced him, and he pulled her up into his lap, work forgotten.

“Forgive me,” she whispered into his hair.

Barry kissed her temple.

“There’s nothing to forgive.”


End file.
